Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The going theory on this one is thatt itt is meant to be a reference to the imminent re-re-re-re-re-release of Star Wars (ONE LAST TIME), this time in 3D! WOO 3D! YEAH! I guess the joke is thatt these people have been waitting for sometthing like ten years? And are still waitting? Is this meant to be funny? I can't really tell how.

992.

Look att me! I'm making a list of LOLRANDOM humor, coupled witth various geeky mnemonics! This time the mnemonics are also slightly geeky! OOOO!

I have gone on record before saying thatt I hatte this fucking shottgun humor. Itt doesn't help his case thatt some of the existing mnemonics are already reasonably amusing--"King Philip Came Over For Good Sex?" Thatt's seriously the mnemonic you're replacing witth your boring alternattives aboutt Katty Perry and kernel panics?

Itt turns outt thatt if you throw enough jokes outt there, some of them will stick. WHO KNEW?

168 comments:

What do geologic periods have to do with contraceptive blister packs? Aren't people with advanced cancer sterile?

Also mnemonics don't work for me. It just means having to remember the mnemonic too [i]and[/i] they only give the first letter anyway. Perhaps I don't have the LOL QUIRKY RANDOM = FUNNY AND MEMORABLE gene.

That having been said, even I see the ROY G BiV sitting right in the middle of the resistor colour code list. Aren't scientists supposed to recognise patterns?

Hitchens, Havel and Kim Jong-il?(Mnemonic: Hell Hath Kunts)This reminds BP of that late summer week in that fateful year 1997 when we, the good people of Earth, lost 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly(1)'.

The much anticipated Purolator package and confirming email have arrived.

I shall alight upon the tarmac of BKK in the wonderful Land of Smiles in the wee hours of December 26, 2011 - Economy Class this time, shite. Thankfully, I will be missing entirely that most odious of christian holidays in the stygian embrace of Morpheus himself as I depart International Falls, MN at noon on the 24th.Until then, I will he here.

Paywall? Also your keeper has his dates slightly off - Mobutu died on the day of Diana's funeral, a week after she died. One of the darker gentlemen at my very minor public school went on to work with him.

If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere wellIt were done quickly. If Jobs' assassinationCould trammel up the consequence, and catchWith his surcease, RIMMing: that but this blowMight be the be-all and the end-all—here,But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,We'd jump the life to come.

ALTF, I'm assuming you went to Oxbridge, in which case you'll probably have had the "what is Earth's cow-carrying capacity" question. I would like to answer your question by assuming that you're asking how many scrota I could ferry by sewing them all over my body. Could I first have clarification on whether these scrota are seed-bearing?

The French concours system is absurd. Instead of actually admitting you on your potential then passing you on your ability, a huge group are admitted to a year of teaching then ~80% expelled after the first year (similar in later years) based on intermediate exam marks relative to others. At the end you have in many schools the absurd situation where only the top 40 scores are allowed, say, to go into surgery - it doesn't matter whether you have a specific aptitude or interest in surgery.

The whole "entrance coaching" system is bullshit and doesn't produce good practitioners - it produces good exam-passers. I know this because I am a good exam-passer.

Last time I went under I woke up a couple of minutes after being sewn up, screaming as if in pain. Or at least that's what they told me. I guess I'd been Rohypnol'd to hide what the bastards actually did. And all for a simple lap chol, the offending organ being practically embedded in my liver.

On the subject of entrance testing, I had a good grasp of English, Spanish, French, German, Latin and Russian by my 15th birthday. I did an MCAT, used as a pre-interview filter for some uni courses, and scored well. I also found a practice test for something called the "DLAB" which is used to screen potential Americunt military linguists - I failed horribly. (Thank goodness I wasn't planning a US military career.)

The latter test involves three or four very narrow exercises, and the opinion is that your ability to become an effective foreign linguist is measurable based on your performance on these exercises. The crowning bullshit is the requirement to multiple-choice-select the "correct" spoken sentence based on an increasing number of rules which modify English as she is normally spoken, e.g.

"Adjectives come after the nouns they're describing."

"All verbs end with an 'oh' sound."

So ten questions in you're supposed to have retained all these rules and be able to instantly apply them to reject sentences which do not conform to all rules presented so far. You hear each sentence only once, and do not get to see it in written form.

This essentially wipes out everyone who learns primarily by reading/writing or visually or by pattern-matching. Languages are easy not because they're full of random rules created by little quiz-writing Hitlers but because almost everything about them makes sense if you take a while to understand their development.

Take another more obvious human endeavour: law. No lawyer treats the law as an arbitrary list of legislation and cases. Common law countries employ and evolve well-known principles, some narrowly and some very broadly applicable, upon which decisions are based. The more you read about the law, the more you understand the interpretation and nuances of these principles. If someone were to suddenly announce for shits that specific random cases had been decided differently then the law would likely lose an element of consistency and sense. A lawyer would need to understand the reason for the change and to examine all cases which rely on its ratio.

We all know that the modern US military is nothing more than a tool for a few powerful special interests. But it still provides an opportunity for intelligent people to do some of the things they enjoy. Why do these intelligent people tolerate bullshit aptitude testing?

It seems to me that the test won't ensure that you're intelligent, only that you've either (a) practiced or (b) enjoy innate ability in some rather obscure skill. The Internet existing as it does for finding out anything anyone's ever done before, it's almost certain to be (a). So I guess that's where the non-sensical/red-tape thing comes in: you're got to see it coming even if you're technically breaking the spirit of the hurdle.

But you may still find such a narrow test difficult even though you excel at the ability which is supposedly under test. It's like testing whether you're a good musician by how well you can sing some avant garde piece presented before you: you may be a first class musician with shit for voice. Or you may simply fall over when presented with a non-standard piece which follows none of the usual musical conventions to which you have honed your singing skill.

Psychometric testing seems to me to be a dangerous way of homogenising brains, taking the selection process out of the hands of individual colleges/businesses/government departments and giving responsibility to increasingly dead psychologists. Fifty years ago we were still in a dark age of psychiatry and psychology: we pigeon-holed, we locked up and we treated with extreme prejudice. Yet when it comes to measures of the potential of able men we have barely moved on. On the contrary, we're racing right back to the start of last century in this and almost every other way we regard and treat the average man.

6:33, not really. I tend to be in the top 5th percentile for most of these sorts of tests, though there are a few I've done particularly badly on (the DLAB specimen being one). I'm not going to suggest that I'm the smartest person in the world but I'm no simpleton.

In almost every case, I don't think the test says anything useful (and certainly nothing permanent) about the ~95% of people who've done worse than me nor the ~5% who do better.

Well, I kinda liked the newest strip. The biggest problem I have is what Dan mentioned - I didn't know it was an existing brand, but I dislike the palpable smugness Randall has, presenting an idea he can't possibly be the first to think of like it was his own.

That said, the art in this one looks like it actually took some work. And that's something. Also, the alt-text was amusing imo.

Also, in Canada, President's Choice products are packaged similarly... minimalist bright white packaging with just a picture of the product on the front and as few words as necessary. No Name products here are in bright yellow packaging.

Instead of putting out 2 mildly amusing ones and 4 terrible mnemonics, he could have just taken panel 1, make the second mnemonic the alt text, and have that be a comic for a day. Same with panel 6 if he could make the mnemonic less awkward (I think you're allowed to put a "the" in the middle even though "T" isn't one of the letters).

Less work for him, it wastes less of his readers' time, he'd have 2 comics in the end instead of 1, and without all the extra baggage they'd be slightly funnier. It could even be a recurring gag, supposing he actually puts some thought into the mnemonics instead of just putting random words together.

I should also add that his mnemonics are too awkward and long to be useful. The resistor one is a good example - that's a long group of words that's not a sentence anyone would ever say. Memorizing that thing would be harder than just memorizing the colors.

That's the elegance (if you will) of "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally." It's an actual sentence that someone might say, and it has a certain cadence that makes it memorable. I used to tutor jr high and high school math and I would use it all the time - not only does it show the order of operations, but it helps explain the entire concept of doing math in a way that's not directly left-to-right (lots of students have trouble with the idea that math is not like reading).

It's actually a great idea for comics with decent (and dirty or otherwise funny) mnemonic devices for science concepts. If they were useful, it'd be all that much more funny. Too bad the execution sucked on so many level.

Also, we didn't get "King Phillip Came Over For Good Sex" in school since the area was pretty Christian. We got something about frogs that I could never remember, so I just had to memorize.

OK wtf is up with that? You must have stuff like this in the US no? like this http://www.statichukd.com/images/threads/220014.jpg and http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_811D12XBGqE/SR8P2CdtjMI/AAAAAAAAASg/F4pESJ-BR9M/s320/London+October+2008+018.JPG and http://www.tescorealfood.com/media/images/Value-range-shot-3-HERO-f567af3a-7520-4dc0-85be-3297d84d0d43-0-472x310.jpg and so on. You must do. And yeah ok those have a supermarket name on them but come on, it's the same fucking thing. captcha: spormons. Polygamous fungal pollen

look at this idiot on the forum " From the text it sounds like Randall came up with the idea without ever knowing that someone did essentially exactly what he was proposing and created a well known brand for themselves with the idea decades ago. :-T"

Well fuck me from behind with a Credit Default Swap, but can BP pick 'em? He just dumped his RIMM stock and made a 10%+/- R.O.V in less than 24 hours!I think the cunt had insider knowledge.Call the SEC

"Well, I kinda liked the newest strip. The biggest problem I have is what Dan mentioned - I didn't know it was an existing brand, but I dislike the palpable smugness Randall has, presenting an idea he can't possibly be the first to think of like it was his own.

That said, the art in this one looks like it actually took some work. And that's something. Also, the alt-text was amusing imo."

Catholic education taught me "King Philip Came Over For Ginger Snaps". I still remember it apparently, so mission accomplished?

Yeah. P.C. basically has the #992 designs, except theirs don't look like an 11 year old designed the packaging.

also pretty sure no single brand would want to sell general grocery items, breads, and milk, but there's a chance Canada just has awful agriculture boards making that impossible. When I say "a chance" I mean "our Prime Minister is trying to eliminate them this year because he hates equality and the Little Guy".

also i want to put that fictional milk somewhere refrigerated, wtf is wrong with me. =[

"......"our Prime Minister is trying to eliminate them (agriculture boards) this year because he hates equality and the Little Guy"......"

The Marketing Boards stifle competition.Ever wonder why Babybels cost more than three times as much in Canada as they do anywhere else in the world and that you have to mortgage your house to buy a litre of yoghurt?

I've decided to observe intellectual diapause as a propaganda of the deed response to the Corvids pronouncement that 'PC' products - highly branded selections originated by Dave Nichol (president of those cunts at Loblaws) - are equivalent to "No Name" products in the abomination known as "nofrills"(also owned by those cunts at Loblaws.

"Notice the ambiance of the decour." said Dave Nichol during a slide-show presentation of the then new Loblaws "nofrills" franchise given to the first year Marketing class at the U of T Faculty of Management Studies(now the Rotman School of Business).

"Ambiance? If that means yellow, you're right!" said BP sitting at the back of the class.

Even as someone who enjoys XKCD from time to time, 993 is utterly dumb. Besides the fact that supermarkets already market very plain packages for their value products anyway, the presentation of the comic is complete and utter straw man argument - no well-researched product is that illegible on the shelf, not to mention most products of any considerable size (cereal, drinks, bread) are often given more width on the shelf than one space. But shhhhh, best not dwell on logic, Randy's brain might explode...

It's... very sad. There's clearly a bit of cranium there, but its used no more effectively than that of any unsupervised 12 year old. You tried to bore me, but instead made me sad. Ergo: By your own admission, you fail.

No one's mentioned this yet, but the original title of the comic was 'Brand Awareness'. Randy of course changed this without letting anyone know even though he has implied in the past (can't find the comic) he is above do-overs.

Also South Park sucks would be awesome. I mean, I love South Park a shit ton, but there has been a steady decrease in the ratio of good:bad episodes, and the bad episodes are definitely worse than they were before.

I think we all just enjoy the idea of a hate blog in general. I love reading reviews of the newer Dexter episodes on the AV Club, but I've never seen an episode of the show. The reason is because every single review just destroys the show and points out how absolutely shitty it has become-- kinda like this blog. What it boils down to is entertainment.

guys, i have a problem. i have a girlfriend who's fat. i'm a good-looking guy and i can easily catch an attractive girl. i really don't like fat girls. but i love the girl i'm with too much to make her feel ugly and that she needs to lose weight. what should i do?

Store brands in Australia pretty much already had Randall's hilarious idea. I mean, they do display a "Home Brand" or "No Frills" or whatever logo, but they're basically colourless and the prominent part of the label is just the standard name for the product. So, I dunno, the latest xkcd just leaves me a little surprised that nobody in America is doing the same thing.

993: there's no joke at all here... it's just "here's an interesting idea I thought up while at the store yesterday". at least he put a modicum of effort into the art.

problems with the idea- pretty sure he used purposefully dull colors in the image so that the white would stand out more. in real life white doesn't stand out any more than any other color- also, in real life, supermarket shelves are white too, not dark grey- people wouldn't want to buy this stuff because it looks shady as fuck- pretty sure randy doesn't know what "brand identity" means and that this is the opposite of one- if he's implying that this will work because it's hard to find these things at the store due to labels being confusing, well that's not true- if this would work, people would be doing it already

994: there's no joke here. it's just... two different things put together, one of which is topical, the other which is nerdy omg!!! <3 ^__^

it's probably UHT long life milk that doesn't need to be in the fridge. not that that makes the thing any less stupid. Maybe he read where people complained about the things in bags in that other shopping 'comic' just being round blobs and thought hah. I'll show them I CAN draw cylinders and boxes too and I can COLOUR THEM IN what's more.and then having decided that he had to find a 'joke' to go with it.

the Advent calendar one clearly illustrates the comic writing process. 'Ahh it's still 11:55. Plenty of time to write tomorrow's comic.'

i just clicked random & got comic 3 which is a really shit drawing of an island. It's fucking embarrassing that this guy once looked at shit drawings like that and thought they were worth showing off about.

It's hard to blame Randall since the generic brands thing happened when he was still being taken shopping by his parents and mentally developing perpetual motion. All the food he now purchases - pizza - comes from a fully branded Dominos or Pizza Hut.

I woke up this morning to -16 Canadian degrees - 4 Yankee degrees. In 48 hours, as the crow flies, I'll be lubricating in glorious 35 Canadian degrees!I'll be back, fortified with Extra-Happy Pizza, arresting those pesky Lao children who have the audacity to pilfer the property of the mighty US Government (40+/- year old unexploded munitions left over from the 'American War'). Well, at least arrest the ones who might survive the thievery in one piece that is - Uncle Sam usually doesn't bother with 'jurisdiction in rem' litigation on the 'clumsy' ones. This makes complete sense as an exploded 'bombie' is of no commercial value and, after all, you can't get blood from a stone.

I hated that holiday. It was horrendous. We somehow took an event needed to help get us through the harsh winters via sharing what we have into a useless mandatory buying frenzy where we spend money we don't have with companies that don't need to exist in order to buy things people don't need.

No wonder everyone gets stressed out and feudal oven the holidays. It's ironic really: This year I tallied up how much I would spend on shite, then donated it all to several children's charities, and somehow got labeled a Grinch for doing so because I didn't put my efforts towards wasteful needless gifts for people that need nothing in life...

Anon556, get them that "donate a goat on their behalf" thing and then when you give them the card that says "you've helped a family of 6 survive the winter!" they can't be mad without being an asshole.

That or just don't see your family until Easter when you can fight over other useless shit.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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